September 23 we were away for three days. While we were gone there was no rain, so I took a tour of the ponds to see how nature was managing the drought. Up along the Antler Trail the grouse seemed to have expanded the area where they take their dust baths.
I saw more feathers in the dirt, though they are hard to see in the photo below.
I bumped into a doe and her fawn, the latter kept looking back at me as she led him (a buck-to-be, I bet) away. As I came down to the Big Pond dam, I saw four mallards nibbling away in the shallows just behind the dam -- so ducks did
not seemed inconvenienced by the low water. Standing on the growing apron of mud at the south end of the dam, I could see three beaver trails. Two went below the dam and one, with nibbled twigs at the foot of it, went up the slight ridge to the south.
I could see deer and raccoon footprints in the mud apron and then back on the trail along the dam I saw large dollops of raccoon poop.
Well I am certain the black tubular poop with berries comes from a raccoon, not so sure about the creamy mass. The path in the middle of the dam going back to the shadbushes remains the widest of the trails, but I didn't go back on it
today. If bowhunting starts here next week, I'll be limited in my explorations around the pond, so I walked up to the lodge on the north shore of the pond. The lodge had not grown that much, but I could see where the beavers were entering, in the east
and west sides of the lodge.
There was a wide trail here heading back toward the small piney woods
where the beavers found what I take to me more shadbushes
No sign of any major lumbering, but perhaps the beavers are waiting until the vegetation is a bit more subdued. I took the surveyor's trail to the Lost Swamp Pond where all was quiet. The water level is down low enough that I can begin to make out the old dam that cinches the waist of this large pond, so to speak.
I sat for about a half hour hoping for activity in the pond. I saw some small painted turtles pull themselves out into the warm sun. Perhaps the absence of muskrats now, I thought, arose because the beavers ate too much of the pond grasses. So, once I saw that no otters had visited the mossy cove latrine, I looked for muskrat poop on the logs and rocks they had marked in the spring. There were no fresh poops on them, but when I got closer to the dam, and just beyond the big log propped out of the water that they had marked, I saw a flat granite rock,
exposed because the water was lower, pocked with fresh muskrat poop.
I also saw more pond vegetation ripe for the eating. And then up on the dam I saw some pond grasses had been pushed up.
Of course beavers or muskrats could have done that. I headed down to the Second Swamp Pond dam and could easily see that the beavers were still nibbling cattail stalks behind the dam.
Today the remains seemed to be mostly cattail stalks and alder sticks, no more flowers.
All this nibbling was roughly in front of the mound of sticks on the dam that I thought might be the makings of a lodge. With the low water I could poke a stick into it from the pond side and it did indeed seem like a little bump in the damthat one beaver could swim into.
If the water drops a bit more, I might be able to poke my head and camera down into this hole and make some sense of this beaver pied de terre. On the north end of the dam, where vegetation is thicker, I saw that the beavers widened a
trail down through the cattails
which I followed to see if it led to the trees,but the cattails closed over the trail. The lodge up along the north shore looked about the same, and there were no otter scats in the latrine on the knoll. I tried to sit for a bit, but the sun was bright and in my eyes. So I headed over to Shangri-la pond, flushing a dozen sparrow in the meadow. It is easy to chronicle the gnawing progress of the beavers now. The girdle on the oak just off the official East Trail is getting wider.
I walked up the beaver trail to the dam and saw the maples leaves on branches left behind the dam.
I stayed low along the rocks, not expecting beavers to be out a 10:30 in the morning, and could see how these expert dredgers were maintaining the channel to the dam.
I continued over to the lodge, to admire the work, and remove a can that looked more like it was dredged up by the beavers, than thrown down from the cliff. Then I took some photos of the lodge showing its breadth
and its impressive height. All the dirt on the lodge had not been on this shore, but had been piled on by the beavers
but as I watched this lodge grow, I never noticed huge dollops of mud pushed up on the lodge. So I am a bit mystified. I saw a beaver here when it was just a mound on the shore, so what I think happened is that they dug down into the
dirt of the shore heaping it up as they went with the logs they brought in to make the lodge. Sounds farfetched, but maybe I'll get a chance to poke into the lodge they abandoned at Thicket Pond which also has this heaped up, rather than larded over, look. Well, blame these confused thoughts on the radon coming from the massive pink granite wall behind me
I sat in the soft shaded moss and enjoyed the beauty, and then a beaver came out and curled in the muddy water in one of the channels in front of the lodge
It did not seem alarmed, and then I heard another beaver in the ldoge splash into water, but I didn't see it. These master dredgers have dug channels so deep in this low water pond that they can enter and leave the lodge without making a ripple on the surface. When the beaver went back into the lodge, I could hear it gnaw on a stick. Then the stick knocked about on other sticks, like the beaver was putting it away, and all was quiet. While I nosed about the lodge I got a momentary flush of excitement when I thought I saw otter scats near it, but
on closer look could see that it was raccoon poop laced with dry seeds.
I alarmed several snakes sunning themselves, most garter snakes, and one water snake.
September 24 walked around the Deep Pond at the land, pausing on the way to munch one of the few apples on our trees, and also pausing to try to remember if the big stand of golden rod had been there every year, and whether the asters always outshined the joe pye weed at this time of year. Can't remember. Then I realized that I had waited too long to start my study of golden rods. They are already losing their luster. So I paid heed to the galls on them, should study galls, too.
And then I tried to get a photo of a viceroy butterfly,
I think it is too small to be a monarch. I tried close-ups, as always; the wind didn't cooperate though it helped make an interesting photo.
When I got down to the pond, I saw a puff of mud at one of the burrows in the bank, like a muskrat just escaping into the deep pond.
So I sat low down next to the pond, under the shade of a honeysuckle, which I appreciated because it was a hot day, in the 80s despite the season. I waited and waited, and then began noticing bubbles in front of the knoll, far across the pond. Nothing materialized, even after I heard and saw a splash
in the shallows across the pond -- could have been a large fish, of course, but I think it was muskrat, but why so shy? I walked clockwise around the pond looking for signs of activity, and I saw enough for some hemming and hawing. Then I thought the trail in the grass beside the inlet pond looked beaten down too much to be only my doing. I walked up it looking for fresh beaver work, and as I admired the mud on the banks of the channel and wondered if the beaver was dredging it,
something dove and swam down the inlet into the deep pond. It wasn't a beaver because the wake was too small. I'm pretty sure it was a muskrat. I waited for it to surface, but muskrats are seldom that curious. So I asked myself again, why was the muskrat so shy? Perhaps it is a muskrat that has just move in, or perhaps it is a muskrat kit just venturing out on its own. I continued around to the knoll, and that mud along the inlet channel, one broad swath that was certainly recent, was the only sign of beaver activity I saw. The lodge looked the same. I
sat on my perch up above the knoll, and enjoyed the birds, either too far away to identify or too close in the leaves. Then I heard some curious frog calls, somewhat like the beginning of leopard frog snores but this rumble was all in unison, and never got out of hand. Maybe it was the undertones of some bullfrogs just getting their bearings before some serious calling in the night, except not many frogs seem to calling during the cool nights. I came down from the knoll and continued around the pond and then bumped into a new beaver trail, judging by the mud on it. Once
again I followed it and this time I did discover a sapling that had been taken, but only one.
I walked down to White Swamp to see how it was faring, and saw more water in it than I expected, quite hospitable to a dozen wood ducks.
After they flew off, I noticed a small black duck. It escaped into the vegetation before I could get a photo, and judging from some clucks I heard from it and echoing clucks on the other side of me, I think it was a coot or a mudhen. I saw a few herons out on the swamp. I was surprised to see a lot of ravens and crows too. We are used to seeing them congregate where a butcher dumps remains, but these birds were swarming over the swamp. Perhaps the low water was revealing things to scavenge.
Then a dozen plovers or sanderling flew in cackling. Two stopped below me and the others flew off noisily, like they were divvying up the territory. I walked along the ridge and found views that made it seem like it was business as
usual in the swamp, but the water I was seeing was probably about six inches deep.
When I got to the area below the creek coming down from the Deep Pond there was much more grass, much of dying, than water.
The channel where I often saw mud on the bank dredged by beavers was overarched with vegetation.
I saw where the swamp water stopped backing up, a few yards below the dam.
The pond behind the dam was completely dry. The water plaintain there, bloomed but not as lush as I often see it. So I took a photo of the dry channel
Before dinner I went to my rock perch over Wildcat Pond in hopes of seeing a beaver in the pond. As I approached I saw a huge green crown down in the pond and figured it was one of the elms just cut down, but when I got closer I saw
that it was a birch tree, the one I had taken a photo of showing how it thrived despite being girdled and almost cut down. Evidently the wind blew it over, or the crown was too lush and large for the crippled trunk. The crown almost fell on the lodge in the pond.
Factoring in that and the water in the pond being so low, I didn't expect to see beavers. Then I heard a splash inside the lodge, but not a beaver, a muskrat popped out in the water. It nibbled some grasses nearby and then I lost it.
Half hour later I heard a splash on the other side of the lodge, but saw no upshot from it.Then a half hour after that I saw something swim underwater from the lodge and swim into the mound pulled up by the roots of a half fallen tree. The muskrat, and a small one, seems to have scooted down that mound, emerged underwater and swam under a trunk before popping up in the water. It took the same way back -- I have never seen such nifty use of pond obstructions. It surfaced briefly and looked a like a small muskrat -- small and speedy. Of course I was mindful of a bobcat on its rounds. Too mindful because a raven started playing with my mind. I am used to their queer imitations of another birds and mechanical noises. A raven high in a pine across from me, drenched by sunlight, warmed up with its usual call and then it
began sounding more and more like the bobcat I heard! the same cackling and then a pretty good rendition of a feline growl. To make clear that it could read my mind, the raven flew over and circled the tree I was under before flying back over the far
ridge. I had other birds to watch, especially robins, doves, and chickadees. There are at least three winterberry bushes and watching birds pick berries (in better light) is another way I could waste part of the day. I'd have a nice bird's eye view of berry picking. I got home in the dark, as the moon was coming up. I heard peepers, greys tree frogs and swatted some mosquitoes, t'isn't autumn yet.
September 25 I got down to the Deep Pond a little before 7, been light for awhile but it was still dawn. I saw a doe on the road, and then waited for the beaver to appear, and it did, but didn't do anything in particular as it swam in
front of the knoll. Soon dove, like it only came out to please me. I took a photo of the dam, the best measure of how the water level has dropped because of the drought.
After pumping water I headed off to check Wildcat Pond to convince myself that no beaver would show itself there. I went by way of the Teepee Pond. It looked like a raccoon had dug several holes in the mud, all of them about six inches
deep, down into water, looking for things to eat. It also dug up a large rock.
This pond has dried out in other years, but not since the beavers improved it. I walked along the broad mud apron and watched scores of green frogs jump into the water. The valley beyond has turned dull, save for one red maple ablaze.
The Teepee Pond doesn't drain down the valley toward Wildcat Pond, so this valley is the beginning of Mullet Creek. I could walk down the channel, now dry, that starts in the woods at the end of our land. I noticed that where the beavers cut winterberry there is an embankment formed by the moss and trees -- was this an old beaver dam?
Further down, I definitely saw an old beaver dam, just beyond our boundary, clearly seen when looking back toward our land.
Then I hit the remaining water of Wildcat Pond, now in a narrow channel.
Meanwhile I saw other interesting items: a peeper, one of several I saw,
and a print. Bobcat?
Then I returned to the study of the pond and whether a beaver could still use it. Where the channel widened the depth of the water was about ten inches.
But I didn't see any fresh work and the only work I knew I hadn't seen before was another small pine trunk half stripped.
Since hunting season is about to begin, I knew time was running out to check the channel below the pond, so off I went. Here the water is muddy like something is using it, and I even saw a hole into the bank along the channel.
The beavers seem to have dredged a long channel, a good 100 meters,
from two areas where they do logging: the pond I've been watching, and a pond well below, almost out of the woods. There was an area where the channel widened before that, but not much work there
I went to the verge of the other pond
I thought I could see a lodge in the hot late-morning haze
I didn't go any further since I was getting close to the active farm. On the way back I took a photo of the girdling closest to the lodge, a likely place for a beaver to get a bite,
and, of course, I took a photo of the birch crown, where I suppose a beaver might fine sustenance
and the trunk that gave way,
Then the unseasonal heat drove me back to the house.
There was a brisk wind so when I got back to the island I decided a kayak tour was in order, followed by a swim. The wind seemed to inspire the birds. Eight cormorants crossed the wind, low, just above the water. Three times as many
geese, taking the same route, flew higher, angling up as if they were ready to leave the river. Going into South Bay I saw some grass floating in the water, muskrat leftovers, I thought, and then looked around and saw a muskrat, tail up, balancing in the waves as it nibbled. This was pretty far out for a muskrat, perhaps a testimony to how shallow the bay is becoming. I did manage to get down almost to the willow latrine -- didn't see any bryozoas nor signs of a beaver or muskrat being down there. I did see the rumps of ducks well down in the emerging vegetations. The
low water suits them just fine. I didn't see a heron until I got to the north cove, but there I was more interested in the jumping fish. The wind rippled channels showing where the vegetation was low or absent, and that's where I saw the shiners leaping out. As the water gets lower in the bay, its fundamental geography changes, and what begins to look to us like a travesty of green muck, offers new possibilities to the small fish. I also roused a big one, judging from the splash it left me to look at. The vegetation tamed the waves whipped in by the wind so I paddled up the north shore. Despite the southwest wind which should have played all along the north shore, I found a quiet cove just up from the docking rock. Vegetation rimming it dampened the waves but the bottom of the cove was relatively bare. Two schools of leaping fish took advantage of this respite. I followed their
leaps but couldn't find them. On my way to Picton in the boat, I circled a loon who didn't seem put out by the attention. Today, as I paddled back around the headland, easy going quartering the waves, I saw a loon about 15 yards away. It dove. I stopped and waited to see where it would surface, and it came up a few feet from me. Dove again, I waited and didn't see it again.
September 26 We had a storm that dumped some needed rain last night, but the rainy day that was forecast to follow was dry, even sunny and up to 80 degrees again. I went off for a hike when clouds came over again around 4pm. I wanted to check the pond above the Big Pond to verify that the beavers had moved away. It wouldn't be safe to range up there once hunting season starts, so I went up today. I went via the meadow behind the golf course, surprised to see no apples on the tree there, then up the ridge, and along the rocks, until I got to my winter
route down the second valley, as I call it, to the Big Pond swamp. This is a beautiful walk but so close to the golf course I seldom take it, except in the winter. I saw some bleached jawbones, perhaps of a raccoon, and that reminded me that I was on the trail the fishers fancy in the winter.
When I got to the valley heading down to the pond, I laughed at all the shade. Every winter it seems like the porcupines are eating too much, killing too many of the trees. No evidence of that today.
And then I laughed at the jumble of rocks that I last saw in the winter blanketed with snow and a few porcupine trails answering the riddle of where to hide. Without the snow, all of the hundred rocks seem to offer a hiding place.
And then my own simple trails in the snow, I see now, cross a good bit of complexity. I'll be back here in December, perhaps the snows will cover all then. To my surprise I found my trail to the Upper Big Pond without too much trouble,
but my trail did not merge with a wider beaver trail. I had some tight fits between the golden rods and asters. The lodge was almost high and dry, and there were no paths leading from it, no dredging around it.
The pond had water and was not that much smaller. Indeed, I flushed a heron who was perched on one of the trees beside it. But the beavers evidently prefer the deeper channels in the Big Pond, which beavers have maintained for almost thirty years. Of course, some of the beavers might have gone up pond -- I'll see if that is the case in January when I can ski up there. There certainly didn't seem to be a path heading down to the Big Pond -- no signs of beavers commuting from here.
I continued on through the dying asters, up the slight ridge, and then got down to where, through a parting in the brush, I could see the Lost Swamp Pond lodge.
No sign beavers had made any paths in the meadow, nor was there any new gnawing in the nearby woods. Clearly this area is too shallow for beavers. As I walked around the pond, I got another photo of the old dam, slowly emerging,
which shows how shallow the water behind it is.
The clouds didn't bring any rain to dispel the daunting humidity so I decided to sit by the Lost Swamp on my spot on the rocks where I watched the muskrats in the spring. I waited almost an hour for a muskrat to swim out into the pond, none did. There were more ducks to scare off the pond, wood ducks and mallards, but otherwise quiet. I went home via the Big Pond dam and there was hard mud behind it, giving me a different angle on the beavers' trail to the shadbushes.
I went back to see if any remained. I'd say over half had been cut. Raccoons seem to be taking advantage of the low water, judging by even more curls of poop on the dam,
twice the amount I saw a few days ago. Thinking about where the muskrats had gone, I decided to walk down to the pond below the Big Pond, where I had seen a pair of muskrats mating in the spring. There wasn't much pond left
but enough for a muskrat, I should think, look at all there is to eat.
September 28 yesterday we finally had some much needed heavy rain which kept me inside. When it stopped I rowed out to Castle Francis (an island a quarter mile away) and back. I looked for muskrats, saw none, but did see some grass that looked like muskrat leftovers well out in the river. It make sense that with the water level down muskrats go further out in the river and browse now more attainable bottoms. We went to the land today, and I scouted some dead trees I plan to cut down and checked the ponds, not expecting any major changes in water level. There has to be enough rain to flow, and the rain we had yesterday has plenty of dry ground to soak into. I checked the understory around a dead ash tree at the foot of the ridge down to the Deep Pond. This ash had a feeble crown for years and quite
a variety of saplings, oaks, maples and birches, were growing underneath it, and there was a good size pine and a healthy juniper. The juniper branches along the ground were stripped. In the winter I see rabbit tracks come into this area, perhaps
because of the variety of trees to nibble and the protection and nutrition of a low juniper. I cut what honeysuckle there was and hoped that would give me room for sawing, but I'm afraid an oak sapling growing right next to the ash trunk might have to go. Then I checked our apple tree that is producing and found that it had more apples than I thought, almost twenty. Honeysuckle is crowding this tree so I cut a good bit of that down. None of the other four apple trees had an fruit. While I was doing this tree work, I heard a loud splash in the nearby Deep Pond. Sounded like
a muskrat so I went down to check, expecting a nice sit of a half hour or so. But the muskrat was right out in the pond. It dove and resurfaced and it was difficult to tell if it was browsing for food, or checking me out. I think it was doing the latter, and soon enough disappeared. I should add that a hawk flew low over the pond while I was watching the muskrat, and I know muskrats have a good bit of respect for large birds. Then at my feet I noticed a freshly worn path coming up from the pond. I
guessed that the muskrat made it, then I looked back into the bush I saw a fairly wide path, big enough for a beaver, through the goldenrod no longer in bloom and the purple asters still in business.
It led to some small willows and I looked to see if any had been nipped, but didn't see any. Muskrats also nip these small willows and might cut them closer to the ground and thus leave no evidence that any were taken. I walked around the pond looking for fresh signs of beaver activity and I can't say that I certainly found any. The vegetation in the water in front of the knoll is rather cut back. There is a muddy trail in the water coming from knoll.
What I am looking for is evidence that the beaver is starting to take some woody matter that would keep it alive during the winter. I worry that it might leave to look elsewhere for trees, so the muddy trail could be the result of
the muskrat moving into the knoll. Of course, beavers and muskrats can spend the winter together in a lodge. I followed more trails into the bush and didn't see any trees taken. Over at the muskrat burrow in the dam I saw a fresh trail of muddy water
there,
and that is the area of the pond where I had seen the muskrat. I also sat up above the knoll, in the perch I fashioned. Didn't see the muskrat again, but I saw several splashes caused, I think, by a sizeable fish. During this drought
the Deep Pond has been a rather satisfying bit of water to contemplate. The progression of vegetation with pickeral weeds and lilies in bloom most of the summer and then the progression of one beaver and a few muskrats through that vegetation has been gradual and seemingly in balance. And the banks of the pond seem finally to have lost all memory of the incessant mowing of farmers and grazing of cows. There have been flowers of every color but red -- and the flashes of dragonflies supply that. The First Pond and Teepee Pond have lost too much water to be as satisfying. The First Pond seemed in danger of drying out but today I saw some broad areas where the bottom had been stripped and mud raised
A deer probably did this, but the changes are centered in front of what appears to be another old burrow -- one used by beavers judging from the shield of logs protecting it.
So since I didn't see any deer prints, I could better make believe a muskrat did it, but I didn't see the usual muskrat touches of cut grass and discarded bouquets. As I contemplated that, in the corner of my eye, I saw the heron
bones, or I should say, the bones of the heron who for two days, fifteen minutes one day and two hours the other, shared the pond with me. That rates it as my most boon companion this summer out in the ponds. I gathered most of its bones, to clean and admire.
September 30 chilly night and warming day, clouds giving away to sun. I headed off a little after 10am, ideal time for checking on what the beavers have been doing without bothering the beavers. I went over the ridge on the Antler Trail, saw no deer, and then around the South Bay trail to check the otter latrines and the Audubon Pond beavers and muskrats. There was not much to check in the lower end of the north cove, where it is getting rather shallow. The geese and ducks enjoyed the lack of water, but the wood ducks flew off, then the geese and then the mallards. I had my camera ready when I walked along the Audubon Pond embankment but no muskrats were out and the muddiness outside the burrows was quite diminished.
Before continuing around the pond, I went back down to South Bay to check the otter latrine above the entrance to South Bay. I found a new scat laced with crayfish parts up on the grass above the water.
Any scat with crayfish parts is hard to date, but I guess I was here a week or so ago. I don't think this is a scat from the spring emerging as the grass dies down. I'd like to see something fresher and more definitive before I proclaim that otters are back in the bay, but it seems one otter at least has been coming up here every now and then throughout the summer. I walked down to the shore, and along the shore, which is easy now that the water is lower, to see if I could find any crayfish parts. No, but I did see some very fresh beaver work. I got the
best shot of the willow being worked on by looking at it from the east with my back to the end of the bay.
The beaver is either quite big or adept at getting up on the runk, or both.
And I saw a little work on the next willow down the bay. As I headed back up to Audubon Pond, I wondered if the beavers, or one of the beavers, left that pond to come down to the bay. My wondering was half answered. I saw a beaver swimming slowly in the east end of the pond. However, there was no fresh work along the west shore of the pond, and while there was new work along the north shore, a path up to some small ash trees, it was not that fresh.
I did see a few freshly stripped sticks around the lodge and in the water in front of the bench, but by no means evidence of major operations.
Then as I continued around the pond, I found the current object of the beavers' desires: cherry trees. They had cut down two of them.
That and grasses have been keeping them going, but, of course, I can't be sure that one or both of the beavers went down to the bay. It does seem that given the paucity of work that this pair did not have any kits. I went back down to the South Bay trail to see how far down I might see beaver work. Almost to a point across the from the point, I saw branches in the bay and a small tree cut along the shore. If the water goes down a bit more, the rocky shore line will get quite broad. At the moment, willows still get in the way.
I headed to Shangri-la Pond and since I would get there at high noon, I planned to poke along the shore of the pond and catalogue the beavers' recent work. However, as I walked along the high ridge south of the pond and came in sight of the muddy water behind the dam, I saw that beavers were in the pond,
at least three, one behind the dam, another below me near the lodge, and the third carrying a branch up one of the channels toward the lodge. That last one dove, and I anticipated it going into the lodge. I could see that one already by the lodge was
looking up at me and before I could sit, it splashed its tail. I got out the camcorder to do a census and check the reaction to the splash. It looked like a smaller beaver slapped its tail, and usually there is no reaction to that. It slapped its tail again, and I did see a beaver swimming up from the dam, not in haste, but that wasn't the first beaver I saw behind the dam. It was still there placidly munching on something. Then before I could count the number of beavers below me, I heard a branch break and saw a beaver lugging a leafy maple branch down the slope east of the pond. I followed it with the camcorder and then got a photo
of it as it brought the branch into the water.
A few months ago I watched a beaver bring a branch into the same area and two other beavers were soon feeding off it. But today the beaver dragged the branch through the pool behind the dam, passed the beaver there, and took it up to a bank where two channels converged that had good number of stripped logs on it. The beaver began munching the leaves. Another beaver appeared, a smaller beaver, but evidently wasn't invited to partake because it swam up the far channel and found something else to chew.
Meanwhile I saw that there were two beavers below me, one gnawing logs at another bank of a channel where there was a collection of logs. The other seemed to be sucking up duckweed, or its jerky head was still wary of my
presense. However, I didn't get any more tail slaps. I was able to video the five beavers below me, and sat back to see if anything interesting might happen, though five of them being out a little after 12 noon, and even going out of the pond to cut
branches, was rare enough. The beaver that brought the branch into the pond was bigger than the other four beavers, and three of those smaller beavers clearly seemed interested in getting a bite of that branch. One parked itself as far away as it could be and still eat a leaf, and the large beaver tolerated that. Then another beaver came on the other side of the large beaver, closer - the other small beaver backed away as if it knew what was going to happen. The large beaver lunged and may have even hit the smaller beaver who quickly dove and swam back to the other
channel. The same small beaver soon angled back and tried to get a bite at the other, the far end of the branch, like the other small beaver did briefly. The big beaver lunged at it again. Then the big beaver took the branch away and swam up the channel. Two smaller beavers soon checked out where the branch had been. Of course, it was gone but there were other things to gnaw. This seemed to be one of two major eating platforms for the beavers. The large beaver took its fresh branch, now a log, up to the other eating platform closer to the lodge. There was another beaver there, smaller, and when it saw the larger beaver move in, it hopped away and let the large beaver bring its unstripped log up onto the pile of stripped logs. Meanwhile, down at the other feeding area, three beavers, all close together, munched on logs
and leaves without any strife.
But what the big beaver was eating proved to be an irresistable attraction to the other beavers. Two swam down to be close. The smallest beaver, probably the kit I saw when they were still in Thicket Pond, sat right behind the big beaver.
Then another beaver came over and, staying farther away, began diving into the mud making a good many waves as if to demonstrate how hard it was finding something to eat. It brought up a knuckle of wood and gnawed on that. Then the little beaver went under and made a big mistake. It came up tugging on the log the big beaver was holding. The big beaver lunged at the smaller and chased it underwater. The big beaver seemed so unnerved by the impudence that it picked up another log, already stripped, not the one it was eating. It dropped that, kind of washed its face to regain composure and then resumed eating its fresh log. Meanwhile I began hearing rather sad whining coming from the lodge. The kit was crying. There may have been another beaver in the lodge to comfort it, that is, I
thought I heard some harmony, but that's a hard call. Eventually the surly big beaver stopped eating and swam further up the channel where muddy water gave way to thick vegetation and I lost sight of it. Meanwhile down at the dam, one of the beavers went over it, cut a cattail stalk and brought it back into the pond. I
was surprised to see it move the stalk left and right, stopping it here and there, as if to find the tender parts. No solid munching down the stalk which is how I think they eat them in the spring. Eventually one of the smaller beavers fished out the log the big beaver left, and suffered no ill consequences. At one point I thought the colony might be settling down. Another beaver swam into the lodge, but then another swam out, and when I decided to go home for my lunch there were four out in the pond. I wasn't sure if the big beaver had come back -- all these beavers seem to be able to negotiate these channels under water, so as I walked back along the ridge, I looked for it in the vegetation below, but no sign that it was there. I have often seen this colony out in the middle of the day over the years, but never this many, going about their business as I imagine the typical colony does under the cover of night. This is convenient for me, and in two days I'll come at noon, and see if this is a regular occurence. As I left the woods along the East Trail I heard a flock of blue jays in the oaks, and I am pretty sure one of them was imitating a hawk. We've heard this before. Certainly couldn't fool another blue jay, was the idea to intimidate the squirrels also after the acorns?
After lunch I took a quick kayak trip to see if I could see any more evidence of an otter eating crayfish -- no, and to see if there was more beaver work around in the Narrows. I didn't see any which I thought might suggest that the beaver doing the eating was not in the lodge tucked in the rocks on the Murray Island shore just off the Narrows. So I paddled over to check and was about to announce the lodge abandoned, when, on the end close to the back curl of the little cove, I saw about four feet of mud packed up on lodge and a freshly gnawed stick. This lodge is so big, probably about twenty feet from end to end, that a beaver doesn't have to pack a lot of mud to find safety. I also was about to announce that the cormorants had left, having only seen two, then I saw a dozen
resting and drying themselves on one of the shoals now looming out of the river.
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